Friday, February 15, 2013

New License and Disclosure Statement

I realized that my blog licensing is no longer congruent with my views on the free culture movement. Specifically, restricting the use of my content to non-commercial uses takes it out of the realm of free culture, and imposes an unacceptable burden on the freedom of my readership. Effective immediately, I am re-licensing all content contained herein under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States license. Users may use any content published prior to today, 15 February 2013, under either this license or the previous one at their option, although I can't imagine why you'd want to further restrict your use of my content. Accordingly, I am posting a new license and disclosure statement.

Disclosure Statement

In accordance with new FTC regulations covering bloggers who make statementsaboutproducts or services,
I am hereby publishing a policy regarding advertisements and
endorsements on this blog. This policy is effective immediately, 2-15-2013, and will remain effective until a new one is published.

This
blog is a personal blog. Though I strive to be informative, I make no
pretense of objectivity. In former Air America host Thom Hartmann's exceptional
phrasing, Riding in Riverside is "fair and slightly unbalanced."
Independent of ideology, however, what I report here will be held to the
highest standards of factual accuracy.

The opinions posted here
are my own. All content on this blog belongs solely to me, and does not
necessarily represent the opinion of my employer or any organization of
which I am a member unless otherwise stated. All content on this blog is
copyright Justin M. Nelson, licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA v. 3.0
license. This means you are free to quote my work and even modify it,
so long as you cite the source and extend these permissions to any work
incorporating mine.

I run ads on this blog. They are
automatically generated by Google AdSense, and I have no control over
the content of these ads. I am paid for these ads by Google, who is paid for these ads. I don't
even see these ads on most occasions, because I am an AdBlock user, and
these ads do not, in any way, affect my writing.

I occasionally
mention products or services, usually ones that aid me in my travels. I
have not received any compensation from the producers of these products
or services to date. If I do receive any compensation, I will disclose
it in the relevant post. Regardless of compensation received, readers
should understand that my endorsement of a product is not for sale. My
review of a product or service should be understood as my opinion of
that product, free of the influence of the entity that provided it.

I
am not an employee of RTA, Omnitrans, OCTA, Foothill Transit, Metro,
SCRRA, Sunline or any other transportation provider, nor am I an
employee of a subsidiary or a contractor that provides services to any
transportation provider. I am an employee of the University of
California at Riverside, which purchases transportation from RTA as part
of the U-PASS program, supporting route 51. This contract does
not change my opinion of these services, and I would enjoy them
regardless. I receive free transportation from RTA as a UCR student,
through the U-PASS program. My readers know that this does not soften my
criticisms of the Agency in any way. Prior to the implementation of
this program, I held a monthly RTA pass, and if the program were
discontinued I would expect to continue riding.

Sorry for the
dense legalese. This post will be linked at the side of the blog, next
to the license notice, for ease of reference. If a change in policy
occurs, I will notify readers with another blog post.